Golf still number 1
JATO Dynamics, the world’s leading provider of automotive data and intelligence, has released its monthly European new car market analysis for May 2009, showing that there are the first signs of recovery in certain markets across Europe. The overall European new car market is down 13.1% year-to-date, a 2.4% improvement from the previous month’s figures. Volkswagen Golf continues to dominate the sales charts with sales up 32.1% on the same month last year.
The much publicised introduction of scrappage schemes across many European markets is now beginning to have a positive effect where the incentives have had time to translate into sales. The German market is now an astonishing 39.7% up on May 2008 – a 20.3% improvement over last months figures. France is similarly benefiting from an improved sales performance in May with registrations up 11.8%, a figure which compares favourably to April when the French market sat 7.1% down on the previous year.
“If Germany provides a template for the other markets where scrappage schemes have been introduced, we may be at the very beginning of a period of recovery in Europe”, says David Di Girolamo, Head of JATO Consult. “It’s far too early to know what the sustained effects of the incentives will be, but at a time when the industry needs to see some rays of hope, it’s encouraging to witness some improvement.”
Model Performance
With the exception of the all-dominant Golf, the market is still seeing small cars benefit most from the incentive schemes and tough overall economic conditions. The Fiesta continues to perform strongly (up 56.0% in May) and the Fiat Punto, Fiat Panda and Volkswagen Polo have all increased sales in May compared to the same month last year.
“It’s interesting to look back at the top ten models as recently as 2007”, says Di Girolamo. “At that point, there were three medium sized ‘C’ segment vehicles in the chart and two upper medium ‘D’ segment cars, including the BMW 3 Series and Volkswagen Passat. Today, upper medium cars have lost significant market share to the smaller models, and most recently it is the scrappage schemes that have been driving that trend.”
Top 10 Models
- VOLKSWAGEN GOLF
- FORD FIESTA
- PEUGEOT 207
- OPEL/VAUXHALL CORSA
- FIAT PUNTO
- FIAT PANDA
- OPEL/VAUXHALL ASTRA
- FORD FOCUS
- VOLKSWAGEN POLO
- RENAULT CLIO
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